The Walk Home Page 3

  4

  Jozef sent Marek to get plywood, but he came back empty-handed. He came into the garden where Jozef was cutting tiles, and said he couldn’t find the timber yard:

  “It wasn’t where you told me.”

  Marek was his nephew. Or, more precisely, he was Ewa’s: not yet twenty and still learning on the job, but he spoke like he knew better than his elders. Jozef was twice his age, with grey in his stubble to show it, and too many years under his belt finding his way around foreign cities, so they stood and argued, in Polish; only then the boy came out of the door behind them.

  He’d been up in the top rooms all of yesterday, and most of the morning, re-doing the skim coat on the walls, and Jozef thought he must have finished already, because he walked to the outside tap and started washing out the buckets. Halted in mid-flow, and still annoyed, Jozef called him over:

  “You know this place?”

  He waved the docket from Pollockshaws Timber, and the boy looked up from his tools, but then he shook his head, like that was a stupid question. So then Marek was irritated too:

  “You from Glasgow, yes?”

  The boy nodded:

  “Born an bred.”

  But then he flicked his head at the long gardens, the solid South Side villas all around them:

  “No round here, but.”

  He turned his face skywards, working through the compass points:

  “I’m fae out that way.”

  He pointed west.

  “Beyond the pale.”

  The boy smiled at them, like he’d just made a joke, and then he stepped forward, wiping his fingers on his jeans. He took the docket, reading the address, and Jozef saw how Marek kept his eyes on him, trying to work him out; if he liked him or not.

  His nephew liked it here in Glasgow: he said it was the people and the things they laughed about. Marek went out to pubs with Jozef’s other workers, and ended up drinking half the night with people he’d never met before. He said all Glasgow men knew about Gdańsk: a kindred shipyard town where the workers had made history, front pages all around the world. So Marek got their life stories, as well as their jokes, and he’d been asking about the boy yesterday lunchtime, when he didn’t come down to eat with them. Marek had told Jozef he was useless, because he couldn’t even remember what his name was. You go and ask him then, you’re so interested.

  The boy had only come down towards evening, after the others were gone. He’d sat and drunk a can of lager out here on the back step, in his patched trousers and tatty old trainers, while Jozef sorted through the accounts at the kitchen table. He’d made no conversation to speak of, but Jozef had needed respite from the day’s travails, and his nephew’s know-all questions, so he hadn’t minded the boy’s tight-lipped way last night. He couldn’t decide if he minded it now. Marek asked him:

  “So you can drive me there?”

  “Aye.”

  The boy nodded.

  “Havnae a licence, but.”

  He blinked at them, deadpan, until the penny dropped.

  Then Marek grinned; Jozef could see that joke had settled it for him. His nephew put out a hand, which the boy took.

  “Marek. From Gdańsk.”

  “If you say so. I’m Stevie anyhow.”

  5

  Stevie was first up the front steps. He was out of his buggy and inside the close before his Dad could catch him. And then his Dad was there and swinging him high onto his shoulders; so high that Stevie had to grab a handful of his T-shirt, leaning against his warm neck, lurching up the first flight and on.

  “Haud tight. We’re up the top, son.”

  They were going to look at the new place. Stevie’s Dad had seen it already, but not his Mum, and he could hear her on the stair now: she was laughing, just behind them and gaining ground, taking the steps two at a time, and when Stevie reached for her, twisting round, she had her hands out, ready to catch a hold.

  “Mind yourself, daft boy. Still two flights to go.”

  Then he was in her arms, and he could see over her shoulder, all the way back down the close they were climbing. It was a tight twist of stairs, still wet from being mopped, flakes of colour coming off the walls; cream up top and blue below.

  There was a hand on the banister one floor down. That was his Gran’s hand, and she always came with them; if Stevie wasn’t carried by his mother, he was carried by her, so he called:

  “Mon up!”

  “I’m comin,” she told him. “Gies a chance. Bear in mind you’re four, son, I’m forty-nine.”

  He could hear she was smiling, so when they got to the top landing, Stevie slid out of his Mum’s arms, and stood looking for her through the rails.

  His Mum and Dad were just behind him at the door, out of puff and making digs at each other, searching through the keys. Stevie’s Dad had them all on his big ring: the ones for the houses he worked on, and the ones for the new place. Stevie’s Mum said:

  “That one! Stop! It was that one.”

  “Naw. Just haud on wid you, Lin?”

  And then the door was open and they were both of them inside.

  Stevie reached for his Gran’s hand and pulled her up the last steps to be quick. Only then his Gran kept stopping in all the rooms, saying she was just having a look: she looked at the bath in the bathroom, and the dusty gap to hold the cooker when they got to the kitchenette. There was nothing in the small room that his Gran said would just about fit his bed, and then Stevie found his Dad at last.

  He was just inside the biggest room, that was all bare floor and raw walls, with Stevie’s Mum on the far side, standing by the window. She’d come to a stop, looking out over the back court with a half-frown on her face, arms folded tight across her chest. It was like she didn’t know what to say now, and so Stevie’s Dad was doing the talking, telling her it would all look better when it was painted.

  “I’ve gloss for the woodwork fae that last job.”

  He knocked at the door frame with his knuckle, and Stevie looked at the new wood, all smooth. The walls were too, and they were plaster pink; darker near the floor, where they were still damp. His Dad had done them in the evenings after work: when he came home, he ran a bath, and sat in that and scrubbed his arms, but he always had a thin rim of plaster around his nails. Stevie was standing close enough now to see his palms, and all the fine, dry crumbs in the creases. His Dad crouched down next to him and pointed to a big sofa that was standing by the far wall.

  “Me and Grandad Malky, we kerried that up here yesterdy.”

  Stevie’s Gran sat down there, so he climbed onto her knees. She had a big body like his Dad’s, and Stevie knew he was like his mother: they had the same hair, and the same bird bones, everybody said so, and when she lifted him he fitted against her. But his Gran had a great lap to sit on, all belly and thigh and bosom, and he liked the way it felt, leaning against her and listening but not listening while she talked.

  Stevie’s Gran told him stories. Mostly about when she was a girl: about her Papa Robert and her Nana Margaret, and what the scheme was like back then. She told him lots about her brother too; she could talk for ever about Uncle Eric. Stevie had never met him, and he didn’t know why that was; his Gran told him so many stories that Stevie got lost sometimes, in all those words. She was speaking to his Mum now, telling her the new flat was good enough to be getting on with, and they’d be first in line for something better.

  “Soon as the council get their act thegether.”

  But Stevie didn’t know if his Mum was following all of that either, because she was still looking out, and he couldn’t see her face now, just her long hair tied back and the back of her neck.

  Maybe she was looking over at the building work. It was down at the bottom of the scheme, and Stevie’s Mum and Gran took him there some mornings, on the way back from the shops, so he could watch the diggers. They stood with their bags and talked. Not so much about when his Gran was a girl, more about houses and housing lists, but they could still be
standing around for ages once they’d started. His Mum asking questions, and his Gran saying things like they’re tearin down the auld tae make way for the new. No reason yous cannae have part ae that too. She told his Mum now:

  “It’s your ain place, Lindsey. Yours an Graham’s.”

  And then it was dead quiet in the room.

  Stevie looked up at his Gran, and saw how she was watching his Mum. His Dad was as well, standing by the doorway, hands stuffed in his pockets. Both of them waiting for her to speak.

  She turned and crossed the floor; dropped herself down on the sofa. And then she leaned her head against his Gran’s shoulder.

  “Be all right. Be all right when we’ve got our stuff inside.” She mumbled it, quiet, into the crook of his Gran’s neck.

  “Ach.”

  Stevie’s Gran put an arm about her.

  “It’ll be better than that. You’ll see.”

  His Gran was his Dad’s Mum, but sometimes Stevie forgot, because she seemed more like his Mum’s, the way they sat now, and stood and spoke, and did so much together: all the cooking and washing, and cups of tea when they were finished. Stevie knew what they felt like anyhow, his Gran’s broad and warm shoulders, and so he leaned his head up against them too; all the while watching his Mum. His Gran gave her a squeeze, once, twice, until she couldn’t help herself but smile. So then Stevie did too; her smile went round the room. When his Dad caught it was the best: he grinned and puffed out his cheeks, like he’d been holding his breath, or like he’d been waiting on that smile for ages.

  They moved in Stevie’s toys the next morning, so he could bash his cars up and down the floorboards while his parents got the new place finished. They painted his room before the others, racing each other with the rollers, and it was bright in there with the window open while the walls dried. They ate their lunches sitting on the sofa, chip papers spread across their knees, only then Stevie’s Mum made them stand up halfway through, so she could lay a dust sheet across the cushions.

  “We’re keeping it nice. Right? Everything in the house.”

  And his Dad saluted her:

  “Aye, aye.”

  Stevie’s Mum scoured the free ads for fridges when they’d finished, until two of his aunties turned up with rubber gloves, to help her scrub out the new kitchen. They brought Stevie’s big cousins along for him to play with, and the girls carried him around the living room like he was their baby, while the boys took running jumps onto the armchair his Dad had found them on a building job. It was big and green and soft with cushions, and when Stevie’s Mum was done with cleaning, she stripped off the covers and put them in the bath; she climbed in barefoot and marched up and down in the soapsuds to make his Dad laugh.

  They were back at his Gran’s place for tea, and on all the next evenings too, because their beds were still there to sleep in, and Stevie’s Mum said they couldn’t cook, not yet, in the new kitchen.

  “Won’t be long, son.”

  All the talk round the table of the new place, cannae wait, fingers and faces all paint-flecked.

  Come the middle of the week, Brenda took Stevie with her to work. She told him:

  “It’s so as your Maw an Da can get mair done.”

  Her grandson was used to coming places with her as it was; Brenda cleaned houses and pubs, and Stevie liked to crawl along the benches while she came after him with the hoover. Or she sat him on a high stool in front of the fruit machines and let him bash the buttons.

  Friday was her day off, and because Malky was sleeping, she took Stevie on the Drumchapel rounds: calling in on her three older sons’ houses for cups of tea and a catch-up, to use up the morning. Stevie ran ahead of her most of the way round the scheme, because he knew whose door was Malky Jnr.’s by now, and which floor of the high flats his Uncle Brian lived. Stevie’s cousins were all at school, but at least he got their toys to himself while Brenda blethered with her daughters-in-law. She finished up at Craig’s house, where Stevie got biscuits to fuel the trudge back to her place.

  The boy had a good pair of legs. Lindsey had given up on the buggy since they moved, because the new flat was on the highest part of Drumchapel, and there were flights of steps all over, weeds growing up through the cracks in the concrete. They had to go down them to get anywhere, and then it was a steep haul to get back up again, so Stevie was used to trotting after his Mum along the pavements, past all the close-mouths, some with neighbours out and talking on the steps, others boarded over and sprayed with tags. Brenda knew Lindsey walked the scheme streets fast to get it over with, but Craig’s end of Drumchapel was full of the new building works, so she let Stevie play awhile by the tonne bags. The place was crowded with pallets of bricks and sand piles these days, just the same as when Brenda was a girl, and she watched her grandson dig his fingers into the gravel, scattering handfuls at the half-built new walls.

  “Reckon they’ll build them tae last this time?”

  He blinked at her, stopped in mid-throw, knowing a joke when he heard one, even if he couldn’t work out what it meant. The scheme was all Stevie knew, but Brenda could remember a time before it sprawled across this hillside. So she smiled at him:

  “Ach, don’t mind me, son.”

  Turning to go, he dropped his stones, skipping to catch up like the good wee boy he was.

  Her grandson had no brothers and sisters, not yet, he mostly just had grown-ups about him, and all their endless talking, harking back and forwards, and Brenda knew fine well she was one of the worst offenders. She’d told him plenty of times before, how Drumchapel was home to her, no more, no less, and how her family got moved out here when she was six. They’d come from the tenements in the middle of Glasgow, with hundreds of other folk besides, mums and dads and kids, and Stevie had heard all about those uprooted families making a new go of it; how the closes were smart then, the steps kept scrubbed, half the place was still empty and the high flats not yet built.

  If Malky caught her talking, she knew he’d laugh, telling her it wasn’t fair on the boy, taking him for a captive audience. Her husband had no truck with looking back on life: he said before you knew it you’d get maudlin. Have you no had enough ae that wae your faither? But Malky was in bed now, not here to tease, and Stevie was good, quiet company besides, so Brenda held out a hand to the boy and pointed:

  “The scheme wasnae nearly so big when we were moved here. It was aw still farms over that way, if you walked tae the far edge.” Below the grey closes standing tall now, all along the high ridge, there were fields of red-brown cows and barley when she was a girl, that her father took her to find. He took both his children to show them, and to tell them how he’d been a farm boy, back in Ireland. Born on his family’s own smallholding, to open skies and views of the far hills, and fields they’d worked for generations. When Papa Robert said they were out of the slums now, he spoke like they’d been returned to a standing they’d been robbed of.

  Brenda squeezed Stevie’s fingers, remembering how her brother had held her hand then, a comforting grip, while Papa Robert told them how their family had been ousted. Eric already knew it, the family grief, all that they’d lost back in Louth. Brenda told her grandson:

  “He was the first born, aye? My brother was older than me, by a good five years.”

  And though Stevie had never met him, he nodded just the same; Eric already familiar to him from all her stories, the boy kept up with her along the kerbstones.

  “Nearly there now.”

  Brenda had trotted behind her brother half her childhood: Eric had always been faster home from school, in the afternoons, all along the wide, new roads. She told Stevie:

  “He gave me a coal-carry when I got tired, but.”

  He’d been a good big brother like that. And a good buffer too, against their Mum and Dad. Brenda said:

  “There were great piles of builders’ sand where the houses stopped. Eric had tae drop me tae get up the top. I mind our feet, sinkin ankle-deep, an how our shoes got full ae it, skidd
in down the far slope.”

  But her brother helped her with her laces, crouching down by the drainage ditches. Eric dusted her down.

  “So as our mother wouldnae gie us a row, treadin dirt intae the new house.”

  Her mother’s temper had been fierce, and Brenda climbed her close steps, thinking about her parents; how they’d both taken a hard kind of pride in their family.

  Stevie was ahead of her, already at the front door, scuffing his own feet clean on the mat, which made her smile again, telling him how her Mum and Dad were proud of the ground floor they’d been given, with a room for each of their children.

  “It was mair rooms than they’d ever had, you get me?”

  Papa Robert planted roses out the front:

  “Three bushes in the bare earth. Like it was comin up roses for his faimly again, at last.”

  Brenda had to laugh at that, sort of, getting her keys out, and then she said:

  “Aye, my faither. He was a force tae be reckoned with.”

  Even when the scheme spread out, turned big and harsh, he wouldn’t make do with pee-the-beds and dog mess in front of the house.

  It was dark inside the flat, Malky not yet up. So the pair of them were quiet then, taking off their shoes, and Brenda was glad of it. Her Dad had been a fierce man all round, and it was hard not to let that spill into her stories. Maybe Malky was right and it was best she was stopped, before she got started on her own tales of grief; of her brother and father, and the way they’d ended up at loggerheads.

  Brenda thought she’d sooner tell Stevie more about Eric and their younger days. Only her brother had been more work than play once they’d moved here, because he’d started at the High School before a year was out, and it was a long bus ride from the scheme. And then Brenda thought how Stevie knew all that anyhow, because she’d told him Eric’s new school was only for the clever ones, and that her brother only had to read something once to remember it. Eric had been best at drawing pictures—he could make things look real, there on the paper—so his drawing teachers gave him extra projects, and her brother did those when he’d finished with his other work. Which left as good as no time for playing by the building sites. Stevie knew Eric had made it his job too, when he was grown: drawing ships at the shipyards, pictures for the men to build by.